Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct)

by Stittle, Kristal

  “Billy’s hand has swollen up really badly. Could you come take a look?” Georgia was the kind of woman who always made other people’s business her own business. Sometimes it could be irritating because she told Nicky a lot of useless stuff, but a few times, her nosy behaviour had come in handy, and Nicky could step in before things got too bad. This might be one of those times.

  Georgia hurried off, weaving through the people milling about, and leading Nicky to Billy. Nobody was sure what was wrong with Billy; he never moved unless you coaxed him along, he never spoke, and he had to be fed. It could have been a mental handicap, or total shock. Nicky was banking on the mental handicap. All the shock-people had shown some sign of comprehension and life at least once. Billy never changed. At least they were able to find out his name because he had his health card in his pocket. In the photo on it, he had the same blank expression.

  Nicky entered the cell that Billy was in. He was sharing the space with two other people and had drawn the short straw that had him sleeping on a foam mat on the floor. Nicky mentally referred to this cell and the one next to it as the hen houses. Georgia wasn’t the only one who stuck her nose where it didn’t belong. She had managed to find three other gossips, and the four of them were as thick as thieves. Fortunately, the hens had taken it upon themselves to look after Billy. One was middle-aged like Georgia, one was an old crone with wispy blue hair, and the third was a teenaged girl who had probably been converted by the others. Nicky shooed the hens back from where Billy was sitting on the edge of a bunk. He was wheezing slightly, which was unusual. His thousand-yard stare was currently fixed on a point between his feet. Nicky kneeled in front of him.

  “I’m going to take a look at your hand, Billy.” Nicky tried to talk to him when she could. Most people treated him as if he weren’t there, but Nicky understood that regardless of what was wrong with him, he might still be able to hear and understand speech just fine. It may just be that the connection between his brain and his body was faulty.

  Nicky gently took hold of Billy’s elbow and lifted his arm. When anyone moved his limbs, he would hold the position for at least a minute before going slack. With his arm raised, Nicky was able to clearly see his hand in the light coming through the small, high-set window. As Georgia had said, it was swollen and an angry, puffy red. The hens hovered around while Nicky inspected the hand, gently turning his forearm to turn the hand without touching it. She didn’t know if he could feel pain or not. She spotted the problem.

  “He’s been stung by a bee,” Nicky told the hens, carefully plucking the stinger out. The bee’s body was just under the edge of the bed. “It’s likely he’s having a minor allergic reaction to it. Do any of you have an EpiPen? We don’t want to risk his breathing getting any worse.”

  “No, but Brewster down the hall has one,” the teenage hen clucked.

  “Can someone go get one please?” That was what Nicky disliked about the hens the most. You always had to tell them what to do. If it didn’t involve speaking, they didn’t act on their own.

  The teenager ran off, her eyes wide as if Billy might drop dead if she didn’t get the EpiPen instantly.

  “You’ll be fine, Billy,” Nicky tilted his head up so she could look into his eyes as she talked to him. “The EpiPen should help bring the swelling down, and make it easier to breathe again. I’ll send Dr. Owen to come take a look. He should be able to give you an ointment that’ll soothe the pain.”

  The teenage hen returned and handed Nicky three EpiPens.

  “I only needed one, thanks.” Nicky took the cap off one and used it on Billy. She could see the swelling go down a bit, and the angry red colour lessen. His wheezing also subsided. She then turned to the hens. “When I send Dr. Owen down, I’ll tell him to bring one of our excess EpiPens. He’ll teach you all how to use it so that if Billy is ever stung by a bee again, you’ll be able to do it yourselves.”

  The hens fluttered and stirred, whispering quickly amongst themselves. The idea of having to use an EpiPen themselves was stressful, but they were also excited that Dr. Owen would be coming. There were six doctors in the prison, and Dr. Owen was voted as the most handsome.

  When Nicky stepped out of the hen house, she was confronted by an angry-looking Brewster.

  “Ah, Brewster, I believe these are yours.” Nicky handed him the two remaining EpiPens. “We’ll replace the one we used. I’m not sure how much you were told, but Billy was having an allergic reaction to a bee sting.”

  “Don’t know why you waste medicine on his brain dead ass,” Brewster grumbled as he wrapped his big mitts around the EpiPens. His attitude toward Billy was common among the population. “We should just toss him out to the zombies. The change would make him smarter.”

  “Hey!” Nicky glowered up at Brewster. Like most of her relatives who lived in Hong Kong, she was petite, and Brewster was a massive mound of muscle. Still, he flinched back when Nicky scolded him, jabbing at his big chest with her finger. “I don’t like to hear that kind of talk. How would you feel if we threw you out to the zombies, huh? I’ll bet you wouldn’t be too happy about that. I mean, what do you do around here other than complain, hmm? You seem to be doing more bad for the population than Billy is. I think if we’re going to toss anyone out, you’re closer to being on that list than he is. I’m tempted not to replace your EpiPen for that remark, but because I’m so nice, I’m going to do it anyway.”

  Brewster visually shrunk into himself. Nicky may be small, but she could be very intimidating when she needed to be.

  “Sorry,” Brewster mumbled and shuffled off back to his cell.

  Nicky sighed and turned back to the railing. She couldn’t spot Orson anywhere; he had disappeared to some place else. The prison looked a lot different from when they had first showed up. People went in and out of cells at will, Christmas lights were strung around the railings to provide illumination at night, sheets and clothing hung across the fronts of cells for privacy, more sheets and clothing were being dried over the railings and on strings strung across the gap. Nicky was reminded that she should probably clean her own clothes soon. It was just such a hassle though, having to do it by hand and then hanging it to dry. There were large laundries in the prison, but they had all agreed not to waste the generators by running them. Besides, people were living in there now, and the noise would be disrupting. Nicky figured that as time went on, there would be more and more lines hanging across the sunlit gap. She looked up at the sky through the massive skylight window running the length of the hall. The good weather had been keeping up. She wasn’t looking forward to the rain, or even worse, the cold and snow.

  “Hey, Nicky!” another voice called to her.

  She rubbed the space between her eyes. Couldn’t she just get a few minutes to herself? She looked over and this time saw James Brenner coming toward her. James was another Keystone mercenary. He was in charge of the people living in the laundry room, so it was no surprise that it was him calling to her. Nicky believed that people had a connection to one another that they weren’t aware of, and that was why you could be randomly thinking of someone just before they called, or you could have a conversation with someone about something, and the next person you talked to would mention the same thing. James trotted up to her, avoiding a toy dump truck some kid had left precariously close to the edge of the drop.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you.” He sounded slightly out of breath. He must have run up all the stairs and jogged down the length of the hallway. “Your radio is off again.”

  Nicky looked down at her belt and noticed the switch was indeed off. She had turned it off while trying to resolve a dispute about a blanket because some of the other mercenaries were talking about the prisoner release on the main channel, and it was distracting. She turned the dial back on.

  “So what’s up?” Nicky hoped it was nothing.

  James looked around cautiously, checking to see if anyone was listening in. They were still close to the hen houses so anythi
ng that was said had to be worded carefully.

  “Well, it’s time for a meeting. There’s a load of stock coming in from the school, and we need to organize where it’s going. Plus, we should all update each other on what’s been happening this past week.” James used a code word when he said stock. Anyone overhearing that would assume they were discussing supplies, when actually they were talking about people. And he said they were coming from the school, which was another camp they had set up like the prison. Something must have happened at the school if they were coming here. The prison had already taken on more than they had planned when the other camps had to evacuate. Some locations, they had just lost contact with completely. The school had been the last one.

  Nicky rubbed the back of her neck, and then gestured for James to lead her to the meeting. As they left, she pushed the toy truck away from the edge and reminded herself to talk to Dr. Owen before the meeting started.

  ***

  The meeting was being held in the prison warden’s office. The space wasn’t very large, but they had cleared out all the tables and filing cabinets earlier, and with just folding chairs, everybody was able to fit. There were twelve mercs, including Nicky and James, who were wards of different sections of people, the head of the medical team, Dr. Milo, the mercenary in charge of outer wall defence, another mercenary in charge of the teams that went out for supplies, and another in charge of inventorying supplies once they were inside as well as their distribution. The warden of the prison, who wasn’t really in charge of anything but knew the layout better than anyone, sat on one side of the table, while Crichton, the mercenary who oversaw everyone and spoke directly with the head base of operations, sat opposite. Eighteen people in all.

  “In case you haven’t heard,” Crichton began as soon as the attendees had taken their seats and the door was closed, “the Palmview Elementary School has been overrun. Over half the people there were killed or are unaccounted for, while the rest are coming here.”

  “How many exactly?” one of the other ward leaders asked.

  “Have they checked each other for infection yet?” Dr. Milo asked immediately after him.

  “Sixty-eight and no. We’re going to have to set up a procedure to get them all checked and processed.”

  Dr. Milo nodded, knowing that was his job.

  “We’ll try to get their doctors and scientists through first so they’ll be able to help with the testing.”

  “They had scientists there?” James asked. As far as anyone knew, the school had been holding just refugees.

  “Yes. That brings me to another point.” Crichton sighed, collecting his thoughts briefly. “They weren’t just holding survivors there. They were running some experiments.”

  “What kind of experiments?” the warden asked nervously. He shrank when everyone turned and looked at him. All the mercenaries knew better than to ask that question.

  “Looking for a cure,” Crichton grumbled at him in a way that suggested the warden shouldn’t open his mouth again. The rest of them knew that a cure was not their end game.

  “Will they be setting up shop here then?” another ward leader asked.

  “No, we don’t need to worry about that. We only need to find temporary space for them, away from the general population. Some of their things are sensitive and it’s better for everyone if they’re not in the open.” By sensitive, he probably meant dangerous.

  “I’ve been thinking of converting the garage into a living space. With some help, I can have it ready before they get here,” James offered. Along with the Laundromat, he was also in charge of the other odd spaces, like the gym, the garage, the library, and various storage rooms they had emptied out and weren’t using for storage.

  “That’ll be perfect,” Crichton nodded. “The other mercenaries are just being added into our own ranks, so we only need to find space for the civilians.” The prison was a T-shape and the mercenaries had taken the short ends as their own living quarters. They had voted one of their own to be the ward leader and had more space to spread out than the civilians had. Only one person to a cell there.

  “Again, I can take them, or at least a lot of them,” James said. “We just opened up the gym as a living space. My people won’t be too happy about losing the space I just managed to get for them, but I figure if the scientists are only going to be here temporarily, we’ll gain it back when we get the garage.”

  “Thank you. Maybe we can fit them all in the gym for now and spread them out as we find space in other wards.”

  “How will the scientists be leaving?” the merc in charge of outside operations asked. “Should I be sending out a team to make sure the route to where they’re going is clear?”

  “No. A pair of helicopters will be coming to pick up them and their gear.”

  Everyone shuffled uncomfortably at this. The day after they had set up in the prison, there had been an incident involving a helicopter. They had managed to catch a man named Mathias Cole, who also used to be a mercenary for Keystone. He had apparently turned traitor, and when they tried to put him down, he had escaped, injuring some other men and killing two other mercenaries: East and LeBlanc. They had caught him and were waiting for the right time to put him down, when all hell broke loose. He had a team with him made up of a collection of civilian survivors. This team had firebombed the guard tower, and during the ensuing havoc, had stolen the helicopter and taken off. They killed three men during their escape. One of those men Nicky had known, but she knew Mathias too, and it seemed out of character for him to be a traitor. Nobody would really say what he had done to be given that brand and she couldn’t see Mathias killing LeBlanc. They had been really close friends, close enough that LeBlanc would help Mathias no matter what the reason. Nicky wasn’t sure who to believe in that standoff. Keystone was known to lie, but theirs was the only information she could get.

  After the helicopter was stolen—an experimental Ostra class no less—home base had sent another to look for it. They found it on a small strip of runway up north, but there were so many infected around, they couldn’t land. As far as Nicky knew, they still hadn’t recovered the chopper. They were supposed to have the helicopter for dire emergencies, but after what happened, home base didn’t think they could handle owning another one and refused to send a replacement. Nicky would have felt a lot better having it present.

  “Next order of business: we’re going to start having weekly meetings,” Crichton moved on. “I want us to keep updated on each other’s wants and needs. We need to keep the population as evenly distributed as we can and make sure supplies are distributed accordingly. We also need to start putting some of these people to work. Several have already volunteered for guard duty on the walls. There are probably some doctors or nurses who could be very useful. Winter’s coming, and things like colds and the flu are likely to sweep through this place like wild fire.”

  By the way some people stirred, they hadn’t all thought of this.

  “If we get enough people, I’d like to start more thorough examinations if we could,” Dr. Milo spoke up. “We should be getting these people’s medical histories: previous operations, allergies, epilepsy, diabetes. We should know these things so we can treat them properly.”

  Nicky nodded her approval of this, and then spoke her own thoughts. “We should train some of these people. A lot of them don’t have any skills that are useful to us right now, but if we set up classes, we could teach them whatever we need. First aid especially, so they’re not going to the medical team for every little thing.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Crichton nodded. “That’s why I kept the wing with the therapy rooms and solitary confinement cells empty, so we can convert them into a learning centre.”

  The meeting continued for several hours. Everyone discussed what kinds of classes they should set up, how their section had been doing during their first week, anything special they would like the outside team to try to find for them, and whatever else they felt needed m
entioning.

  ***

  Nicky had agreed to help James clear out the garage. She figured her section could live without her for a few minutes. At least she hoped they could. A few others had volunteered, and they quickly got the prisoner transport trucks and police cruisers out and into the spaces between the fences. They moved out the tools, which were added to their supply storage in the basement, and began setting up a few cots. Nicky wasn’t ready to go back to her section right away, so when most of the other guys left, she stayed to help wash the floors and walls. The smell of oil and gas was hard to get out.

  “Do you really think the scientists will care about the smell?” Nicky asked James for the sake of conversation. “I mean, they’ve probably used chemicals that smell far worse than this. I’d be surprised to hear they still had a sense of smell.”

  James laughed. “True. It’s not them I’m worried about. I’d rather start getting this smell out now so that it’s ready for my people to move into after the scientists ship out. Space is tight in my ward. Unlike where you are, they don’t have the privacy of cells.”

  Nicky nodded, smiling about how genuinely concerned he seemed for his civilians.

  James looked around the mostly empty space, checking that they were indeed alone. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Don’t see why not.”

  “When the helicopters got mentioned in the meeting, most everyone got a kind of pissed-off look on their face. You didn’t, you looked worried.” Looks like Nicky wasn’t the only one who studied the others.

  “I was thinking about the fact that we don’t have a helicopter anymore. That bird was to be an emergency life line, and I don’t like that we don’t have it.”

  “Yeah, I figure most people were thinking along those lines.” James mopped his way closer. “But most people are angry about it. You know, angry at the traitor for stealing it.” James didn’t stress the word traitor as everyone else did.

  “You mean Mathias Cole? Did you know I knew him? We both worked in the Black Box outside of Vancouver for a while. I even went on a week-long mission with him once.”